This
edited volume explores human behavior from the perspective of personality
psychology.  In particular, it examines
the value of particular personality traits with respect to psychological, as
well as social, adjustment and maladjustment. 
The book is organized around a chosen number of personality traits, with
each chapter dedicated to one of these traits. 
Some of the traits, for example, self-esteem, optimism, intelligence,
goal pursuit and personal control, have traditionally been taken to be
behaviors that confer positive benefits upon their possessors (i.e. virtues),
while other such as pessimism, rumination, perfectionism and neuroticism have
been understood to be vices.  The
overall goal of the book is to demonstrate that such personality characteristics
cannot be thought of universally as either virtues or vices.  Rather, to correctly understand personality
traits, and in particular whether they are beneficial or harmful for an
individual to have, one must understand both the context in which a trait occurs,
and the effects of other personality traits on the trait in question.  Thus, in order to begin to better understand
personality, one needs to go beyond an either-or understanding of the utility
of personality traits.  One needs to
relinquish the belief that any given trait — no matter who possesses it and in
what context it is possessed — is either a virtue or a vice.

In Section I (Positive Personalities: When
Virtue Can Become Vice), we begin with a chapter on the value of high
self-esteem.  Traditionally taken to be
a virtue in so far as it reflects a well anchored and secure sense of self, as
well as being positively correlated with psychological health in general, we
learn that high self-esteem is, in some cases, a vice as well.  In particular, some individuals with high
self-esteem employ self-protective or self-enhancement strategies to avoid
failures.  This is caused by an
excessive concern with how they feel about themselves, and an unhealthy vigilance
in maintaining their high self-esteem. 
Such an individual typically credits their own abilities for their
successes, while denying any involvement in their failures.  Others are often unfairly blamed for these
failures.  In addition, some high
self-esteem individuals engage in risky behaviors because they overestimate
their abilities.  Thus, personality
psychologists have found it necessary to introduce a distinction between secure
and fragile self-esteem.  The two are
differentiated on the basis of a number of factors, among these the stability
of one’s self-esteem over time, and the dependency of self-esteem upon the
achievement of certain outcomes.  Thus,
we learn that self-esteem is only a virtue when combined with particular other
personality traits, and in the absence of those traits (or perhaps, more
correctly, in the presence of other traits) self-esteem becomes a vice.

Other chapters in this section explore similar
themes.  Chapter 2 examines
"Optimism as Virtue and Vice", where we learn that optimism may only
be beneficial in situations where an individual exerts some control.  In those situations beyond an individual’s
control, optimism predicts depression and risk-proneness.  In Chapter 3, "Intelligence: Can One
Have Too much of a Good Thing?", we are presented with the now common (albeit,
not yet well understood) question of what, exactly, counts as
intelligence.  If intelligence is merely
understood in terms of standardized IQ tests, then certainly intelligence can
be negatively correlated with adaptability. 
Examples of this include cases where practical intelligence (not
measured by standardized IQ tests) is lacking, and day-to-day practical problem
solving skills are absent.  Chapter 4
explores "The Hazards of Goal Pursuit", and Chapter 5 "The
Virtues and Vices of Personal Control".

Section II (Negative Personalities: When Vice
Can Become Virtue), contains chapters on pessimism (Chapter 6, "Pessimism:
Accentuating the Positive Possibilities"), rumination (Chapter 7,
"Rumination, Imagination, and Personality: Specters of the Past and Future
in the Present"), perfectionism (Chapter 8, "On the Perfectibility of
the Individual" Going Beyond the Dialectic of Good Versus Evil") and
neuroticism (Chapter 9, "Neuroticism: Adaptive and Maladaptive
Features").  This last chapter
takes on what is, for psychology, a very old and well-studied personality
trait.  From the beginning of scientific
investigation into this important and broad dimension of individual personality
in the nineteenth century, it has been thought of as a maladaptive property.  (More correctly, high neuroticism is thought
to be maladaptive, whereas low neuroticism to be adaptive.)  Thus neuroticism is correlated with
chronically elevated levels of negative emotion that are believed to cause high
levels of stress, distress and dissatisfaction.  The authors of Chapter 9 challenge this view.  By first demonstrating that neuroticism is
not only a trait that one may possess but also a strategy for coping with
life’s situations, they explore the strong link between neuroticism and the
Behavioral Inhibition System — a warning system that responds to environmental
uncertainty and produces a multitude of negative affects inducing the organism
to scan the environment for more information. 
Understood in light of this connection, neuroticism can be seen as a
protective measure.  Neuroticism
promotes vigilance — attentiveness to environmental stimuli that evolved to
protect the organism from harm.

 This
edited volume is intended for anyone interested in an in-depth exploration of
personality traits and the effects of these traits on everyday behaviors.  We learn that personality traits are not
just fixed properties of individuals but also provide strategies for living:
strategies that, when coupled with particular circumstances or other personality
traits, can provide quite different consequence from those expected.  The main lesson is that when it comes to
personality traits, what counts as virtue or vice cannot be understood in the
abstract, as always and everywhere either a virtue or vice. 

Overall, the chapters provide an extremely balanced,
well-rounded view of these personality characteristics and the particular ways
in which they affect the quality of human life.  An added bonus is the fact that each chapter constitutes a
literature review article on some particular personality trait.  Thus, each serves as an extensive reference
resource for further readings on the topics covered.

It
is important to note that this volume is not for someone uncomfortable with the
idea that psychology is a social science and as such, engages in the
statistical analyses of its subject matter, drawing conclusions about human
behavior that are based upon the analyses of inventories, questionnaires and
other quantifiable measures.  In this
sense, this collection reflects mainstream psychological science.  That said, it also worth noting that the
volume does not engage a level of technicality beyond that which can be
expected of the generally well-educated reader.  When statistical or other technical work is invoked, it is always
well explained and used primarily for illustrative purposes.

I
would highly recommend this book to those both familiar as well as unfamiliar
with personality psychology.  It
represents the field at its best and convincingly portrays the research done
there as absolutely essential to any complete understanding of human behavior.

©
2004 Patricia Ross

Patricia
Ross teaches philosophy at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. 

Categories: Psychology, Philosophical, Ethics